


the boys in black and blue

by Laylah, roachpatrol



Series: Imperial Pop Star [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Comfort Sex, Hospitals, Injury, M/M, NPC Deaths, Rivalry, Street Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-23
Updated: 2013-01-23
Packaged: 2017-11-26 14:02:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/651257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah, https://archiveofourown.org/users/roachpatrol/pseuds/roachpatrol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“This<i> fuckin’</i> bites,” Cronus repeats.</p>
<p>You roll your eyes. "Yeah, well, if you got any better ideas, <i>champ</i>, you could do worse than speakin' up." He likes to think he's so much more mature just because he's got, what, two whole sweeps on you? And then he acts like this.</p>
<p>He gives you this <i>you're such a wiggler</i> superior glare and sometimes you'd like to pop him one in the snout if you weren't sure it wouldn't upset Karkat. "Let's go out," he says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the boys in black and blue

**Author's Note:**

> It may help to have read "once in a while (you get what you deserve)" first; this is the story of what actually happened before the news story that Sollux reacted so strongly to.
> 
> ...Also we wrote that one and this one in tandem, which is why they're being posted in such quick succession. Don't expect another one this fast!

_listen to the curfew bell_   
_it's time to go and raise some hell_

You've got some down time in one of these crap hivestem colonies where you're doing a show—two shows, maybe? you've honestly stopped giving enough fucks to pay attention, just like you did by the end of your first tour—and you're all bored. Dualscar's got precious important meetings and shit to go to, appearances to put in, and you're not sorry to miss those but you really wish something would just _happen_ already.

“This bites,” Cronus says for the fifth time in as many minutes.

“You’re just asshurt because I’m schooling you,” Karkat says for the sixth time in, yeah, about the same minutes, and then he hoots and waves his handheld in Cronus’s face. “Suck it, creampuff!”

“This _fuckin’_ bites,” Cronus repeats.

You roll your eyes. "Yeah, well, if you got any better ideas, _champ_ , you could do worse than speakin' up." He likes to think he's so much more mature just because he's got, what, two whole sweeps on you? And then he acts like this.

He gives you this _you're such a wiggler_ superior glare and sometimes you'd like to pop him one in the snout if you weren't sure it wouldn't upset Karkat. "Let's go out," he says.

Karkat leans back in his chair, hunting around for his communicator. “Yeah, I wouldn’t mind a walk. Here, I’ll call Securipper Parlet, she can—”

Cronus catches his arm. “Naw, chief,” he says, grinning, “like, _on our own_.”

"Where would we go?" you ask. "Not like any of us exactly knows the fuckin' neighborhood."

"Scared to do a little exploring, pupa?" Cronus shoots back, sneering at you.

You bristle, surging up to your feet. “Fuck you, Cro—”

“Easy,” Karkat says, raising his hands up between you. You slump down again. “Calm your tits, guys, no one’s saying anyone’s scared. This just doesn’t seem like the most sensible fucking course of action, okay?”

“Yeah, well, it’s _action,_ buddy,” Cronus says. "Which we are otherwise not seeing any of."

Karkat makes that adorable little frowning face he gets when he's determined to fix something. "Okay, well... What did you do to keep yourselves entertained at times like this on the last tour?"

Cronus looks at you, raising an eyebrow like somehow the question is your problem, not his. "Not a whole lot, I guess," you admit. "It was my first go-round. The novelty hadn't worn off yet."

"He means he was struggling to keep up, and he passed out every time we got off stage," Cronus says.

" _Fuck you_ ," you snap again. "Seriously, Cro, what's got up your nook and died tonight?"

"Hey, no," Karkat says. He puts himself right in front of you, demands your attention with that stubborn set of his jaw and the pleading look in his eyes. "Let's _not_ spend the evening trying to piss each other off."

"Tell him that," you mutter.

"I'm talking to both of you," Karkat says. He puts a hand on your chest and just pets you gently and despite yourself you calm down. Talking to both of you but touching _you_ , so that's all right.

Cronus rolls off the couch and swaggers over to stand behind Karkat, leaning his elbows on Karkat's shoulders. "Come on," he says. "What do you kids say to a little adventure?"

Karkat looks like he's definitely got something to say to that but then Cronus gets a hand in his hair and starts rubbing one of his horns, and the focus slides right off his face. "Nnn," is all he manages.

Fondling Karkat to win an argument is not strictly cheating, but it’s cheap as hell and from Cronus’s shit-eating grin you know that he knows you’re mostly only mad because you hadn’t gotten there first.

“C’mon, pearl,” he says, tugging Karkat back against him. “We’re all going _crazy_. Quick jaunt out, quick race back, we’ll be home for supper.”

“Y-yeah,” Karkat murmurs. “Yeah, mmnh, fuck.”

You sigh, loud enough to let them both know you’re not happy and you don’t intend to be, and shrug pointedly. "If you're so fuckin' determined," you say. You're just as stir-crazy as Cronus is, truth to tell, but he's going to be such a smug nookwhiffer about it being his idea.

Karkat’s starting to purr, high and breathy, and if Cronus stokes him up any further there’s going to be kissing, and then you’re going to have to go and get some, and if you do that you’ll all just fuck and then you’ll fall asleep and then Cronus will sneer at you again. You lever up out of your chair, stalk past the two of them, and yank open the door.

“Shall we proceed, gentlemen?” you bite out.

“Age before beauty, champ,” Cronus says.

“Be nice,” Karkat mumbles. “I—mn. _Cronus_. C’mon.”

“He can wait,” Cronus says, and Karkat makes this breathless _giggle_ —you round on your heel, your claws coming up.

“Okay, okay, chill out,” Karkat says, and darts forward to catch your wrist. “Let’s go clear our heads.”

“I’m going to— _rrgh_ ,” you hiss. “Let me hit him.”

He nuzzles into your palm, a brush of lips and then a slow, distractingly wet swipe of tongue. “Better idea,” he breathes against your skin. “Catch me.”

“Wh— _Karkat!_ ” He’s already darted off. You know you’re just racing because Cronus doesn’t like to, so he’s throwing you a victory just for your pride, but it helps. Cronus shouts behind you and you’re off after Karkat, whooping.

You chase him up a set of stairs, down a hallway, down a different set of stairs—the emergency-exit dark-and-grimy kind, bare steel that rings under your feet—and zig-zagging through three corridors before you catch him at last, almost back to your own room. You get him round the waist and pick him up, twirling him around as he giggles and Cronus comes jogging up after you, scowling like an asshole. Karkat's chest heaves in quick, sharp breaths against your arm.

"You get lost?" Cronus asks. "Thought we were heading out'a here."

Karkat nods and doesn't pull away from you. "Yeah, uh. It occurred to me halfway up the stairs that maybe we'd want hoodies and stuff? I mean...maybe you guys don't get as cold, I guess, but it's been kind of chilly out there lately, so...."

"Naw, that sounds like a smart move," you say, “all the better to go around incognito,” petting Karkat some to remind him you're on his side. He smiles at you.

"Well, come on, then," Cronus says, pushing past you back into your quarters. "Let's get into the wardrobifier and get a move on. I wanna be outside _sometime_ this season."

*

“Here, kitten, gimme your communicator,” Cronus says, once you’ve finally snuck your way up to the surface, and goes fishing in Karkat’s back pocket.

“Wow, hey, handsy—”

“C’mon, champ, you gotta, I left mine back in the room so they’ll think we just stepped out for—” and he cups Karkat’s butt. Karkat chokes out a laugh and gets his communicator out of his hoodie’s front pocket.

“Hold it up to my ear?” Cronus coos, still holding Karkat’s butt.

You grab it out of Karkat’s hands. “Fuck’s sake,” you grumble. “What do you need to key in?”  
Cronus flashes a few fangs at you but whatever, it’s not like you don’t know he practices that sneer some afternoons when he thinks none of you are looking.

“We’re looking for ‘Sunshine District’,” Cronus says. “Heard from some sound crew that was the place to slum it up, ‘round here.”

“Since when do you slum?” you want to know.

“Since when do you talk to the sound crew?” Karkat wants to know.

Cronus draws himself up, coughs into a fist. “I am a man of many facets,” he says haughtily. “And in any case I wasn’t talking to those knuckle-draggers, I was gatherin’ intelligence—”

“From behind an amp, while slathering yourself frantically with antiseptic,” you put in.

“You are welcome.” Cronus frowns. “Look I said they were dirty a big hot total of _once,_ and it was an objective statement of fact, chief.”

Karkat hooks an arm through his. “God forbid you ever touch anything that hasn't been pressed and polished first,” he teases, and pops a kiss to Cronus's bicep. “Eridan, where’s Sunslammer Way?”

“Sunshine District,” you correct, looking it up. “Uh... half a league north.”

“We can walk that.”

You put on a look of deep horror. “Oh, no, champ, that involves honest flippin’ _exertion_.”

“How’s this for exertion,” Cronus rumbles, and grabs you around the waist. Before you can so much as kick he’s got you over one shoulder and is scooping Karkat up to the other. Karkat just laughs as Cronus starts striding off, jostling all the breath out of you.

“Put us down, you’ll strain something,” he says.

“I could carry you there and back, sprat,” Cronus says, and walks faster.

“No, I mean, Eridan’s going to rupture a fucking blood vessel or something, put him down,” Karkat says.

“More like I’m going to take your fuckin’ head off,” you hiss, and rake your claws hard up Cronus’s back. Cronus yowls with pain and shock and drops you both, and Karkat lands hard. You throw yourself at Cronus, swinging again, and he just catches your wrists like you’re nothing.

“You wanna go,” he hisses, “you really think you’re hard enough to fuckin’ have a go, you little yolk-nosed wiggler—”

“THAT IS ENOUGH,” Karkat bellows, and that stuns you both long enough for him to shove himself between you. He’s breathing hard and has a gritty smear of dirt along his cheek, the skin flushing a little pink around it. His pupils are slitted with anger and he gets right up in your face, shouting: “I HAVE HAD A HEAPING GODDAMN CRAWFUL OF YOUR MOODY SHIT, ERIDAN, YOU WILL CUT IT THE HELL OUT.”

“He started it,” you protest, and Karkat just shoves you back.

“I don’t give one dripping nookload of a fuck whether he danced a sprightly little jig while waving a flag that said you pail goats, Eridan, you’re the one who turned this very nice walk into a slasher flick. Apologize.”

“It really hurt,” Cronus puts in, pouting. You want everyone to go die.

“I’m sorry,” you grit out, “Karkat.”

“Wrong name, boss,” Karkat says.

“Cronus,” you say. “My apologies, bro.”

Karkat pats your face. “There we go,” he says, all sweetness again. “Now we are all going to keep our claws to ourselves and have a good time or so help me I’m telling Dualscar and he’s getting the two of you fucking neutered. Come on, I want chips. Let’s get chips.”

*

You're pretty meh on the idea of chips in general—they're made out of a root vegetable, which is kind of gross and also gives you a stomachache—but you like watching Karkat enjoy food no matter what it is. Kid just looks so fucking happy about it. You don't even care that the fried fish at the chips place—a mobile hive, and grimy all over—was some of the shittiest you've ever had. And that you’re standing around in a fucking muddy lot, with hunks of metal and plastic and you don’t even know what scattered about, and the midbloods clustered around the chip ‘truck’ are shooting you three suspicious little glances and your fins are starting to get sweaty from your hood. Still, Cronus has already registered his objections and however much you might agree you have your dignity. And also Karkat, tucked under your arm.

“I haven’t had chips this greasy in forever,” Karkat purrs. He licks salt off his fingers and then looks at your cone of paper with frankly mercenary appraisal. “Are you gonna—” You hand yours over, then take Cronus’s portion and pour them on top. “Yes, thank you, excellent. All chips are my rightful tithe. Your chip king is pleased.”

"Chips, beetles, sweet rolls, cluckbeast wings, those pickled vegetable things the other night," you say. "Kar, sometimes I wonder if there's anythin' you _won't_ eat."

Karkat hunches his shoulders and licks masticated potato off his front teeth. “You try eating off a rustblood’s budget,” he says defensively. “See how much kim chee you want once it’s on offer.”

“Urgh,” Cronus says.

“Urgh,” you have to agree. Who'd want to live like that?

Karkat puts a mushy chip down your hoodie, and laughs until he squeaks when you yelp. You regret handing all your chips over, for a second, because Cronus is smirking at you and you'd like to stuff some greasy potato down _his_ shirt. But you're out of ammunition, so you don't, and instead you just try to ignore Cronus and think about how damn cute Karkat squeaking is.

It's still hours to dawn when Karkat finishes his mountain of chips and tosses the paper wrapping in a bin. He stretches and grins at you both and he looks so fucking lively, so happy to be here. "Thanks for indulging me there," he says. "Um. Where are we headed next?"

“Let’s go score some lowblood drugs,” Cronus says.

“What,” you say.

“What,” Karkat says.

Cronus just grins. “We’re already out here, aren’t we? Let’s live it up. Let’s have fun.”

“Let’s donate our brains to science,” Karkat says faintly. “Because obviously we’re not actually using them or anything, Cronus, you can’t be serious.”

“Are lowblood drugs really fucked up?” you ask. “Like, dangerous?”

“Wh—no, I don’t know, guys, I never did any drugs before I met you, that’s not my objection, my objection is you want to find lowblood drug dealers!”

“Are _they_ dangerous?” you ask.

Karkat buries his face in his hands. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, Eridan. Everything out here is dangerous.”

“If you’re scared you can go back, bro,” Cronus says, all tender concern.

“We’re all going back,” Karkat snaps, and there’s a startling twang of _Dualscar_ to it.

Cronus draws himself up, very tall, and looks down his nose at Karkat. “And who are you,” he says, really slowly, really cold, “to tell me that?”

You think maybe Karkat’s heart has stopped. You think maybe _yours_ has. Karkat’s just standing there and starting to shake.

"I'm sorry," Karkat whispers.

"Come again, sweetheart?" Cronus says. "Couldn't rightly hear you."

Karkat swallows hard, looking at the ground. "I'm sorry," he says again, louder. "I was out of line."

Cronus takes Karkat's face in one hand, tipping his head back. Karkat just moves with him. You dig your claws into your palm. "Long as we got that sorted, sweet thing," Cronus says, and kisses Karkat gently on the mouth. He looks over at you, eyes narrow, mouth twisted up in smug pleasure. "How about it, bro? You want to head home?"

You wouldn't leave him alone with Karkat right now for love or money. "An' miss out on all the fun?" you say, showing him your fangs. "Not hardly."

*

If the junkyard passing for a lot around the chip truck was disturbing, the maze of pasteboard warrens and humped-up filth Cronus leads you into is downright bowel-loosening. Karkat flinches at every flicker of light that makes its way down to street level and holds your hand tight enough you can feel his little squeakbeast pulse right through your palm. He’s so transparently freaked out it hurts to look at him.

“Huh,” Cronus says, and you almost plow into his back. You’ve just all gone down a blind alley, and he’s frowning at the facing wall of pipes and junk like it’s personally offended him. He says, gesturing with the communicator, “This is supposed to be a through street!”

Karkat makes a teeny, tiny, horrible whimper.

You really, really don’t want to turn around right now.

“It _was_ a through street,” someone says. “Now it’s a cullpit for idiots.”

You change your mind. You'd rather turn around than not know how much trouble you've got behind you.

There's four of them, all pretty solid across the shoulders, all at least your height. The accent colors they're wearing are all greens, one maybe teal. You can't tell whether you saw them back at the chip truck or if it's just that they all look the same, snaggle-toothed and dirty.

Karkat pulls you back, till you’re shoulder-to-shoulder with Cronus, and he’s in front of you both. He’s got his hood down and he looks so fragile.

“We don’t want trouble,” he says to them, holding a hand up, placatingly.

“Then it’s really funny that you’re here right now,” one of them says, and there’s a lot of ugly sniggering. This feels like the lead-in for a music video, their sneers and bluntly threatening dialogue. You almost expect a director to call _cut_ and make you do it again with different pacing.

"Please," Karkat says, softly, with a little wobble in his voice. Your fins start flaring out on reflex and your bile sac knots. How dare these pieces of trash do anything that would make Karkat sound that scared and small?

"It ain't gotta be about you at all," the one up front says. "You're not some fancy tourist piece of shit, are you? They make you come along?"

Cronus is growling under his breath. Karkat says, "Please. Please, let me and my friends go."

The leader takes a step closer, then bends down and gives Karkat a soft pat on the cheek. "Brother, highbloods ain't anyone's friends,” he says. “Just turn those swank assholes over to us and we’ll make this all easy--”

Karkat headbutts him right in the face, hard enough to drive him to his knees. “DON’T YOU FUCKING _TOUCH_ THEM,” he screams astonishingly loud, “THEY’RE _MINE,_ ” and he’s got a length of pipe in those pretty, birdlike little hands of his, and he steps back and brings it down.

There’s a breathless moment of silence, as the three thugs left all stare at the body and Karkat raises his pipe.

“Cronus,” he raps out. “Call for help.”

One of the thugs takes a step back, and Karkat just plows into them, swinging, his pipe actually whistling through the air. He hits the second guy low in the gut, bowling him over, and then the third guy picks him up by one blood-spattered horn and throws him into the alley wall. His cry of pain is like getting acid poured down your spine.

“Cronus,” you whimper, grabbing at him, “Cronus, call for help, oh god.”

Cronus doesn’t move, his face blank with horror.

“Cronus!”

When you look back Karkat’s gotten back to his feet but so has that second guy, and there’s knives.

“ _Cronus_!” you shout, and fumble at the communicator in his hand, but he’s holding it so tight the chitin facing is starting to splinter. “Please, fuckin’, please, come on—” you hit at his arm, and he finally breaks out of his stasis, fumbling for the call options.

Karkat screams and when you look back, around Cronus’s body, that first guy is staggering back to his feet, muddy blood seeping down his face, teeth bared. Karkat’s got his pipe up again but he’s shaky on his feet and one of his opponents has a shattered horn and the other’s got a broken arm but they’ve got _knives_. He swings at heads and knees and guts and sends one of them staggering back but they’re just shrugging him off, at this point.

“Oh fuck,” you say. “Oh fuck, oh god, that’s Karkat.”

“Help,” Cronus whimpers.

“Yeah, I—I—yeah,” you say, and look wildly around for something, another pipe, anything.

Cronus grabs you. “What? No, you idiot, I called help--”

“Yeah, Karkat—”

“He’s—” Cronus looks back. “Ohgod,” he breathes, and locks up again.

“Cronus,” you yelp, and hit at him, but he’s _gone_ , his pupils needleslits. You push him against the wall, down to his butt, curl him around the communicator. “Be safe,” you hiss, “take care of the signal, they’ll get here soon.”

Cronus just stares at you blankly.

You clap him on the shoulder, and Karkat screams again, and you scrabble around in the muck for something, anything—you find a jagged chunk of brick and your hand closes around it, one corner digging into your palm.

He’s got one guy on his back again, another guy staggering, arm twisted at a weird angle. He sees you and you don’t know what kind of face he’s making, wide-eyed and fang-bared, like maybe he’s going to tell you to go back and huddle with Cronus and you want to, really you do, but he’s going to die and so you kind of wave your chunk of brick around.

The guy on his back stabs him _right_ in the arm. Like, the knife just sticks in and stays there, like a bad prop. You have no idea what to do about that, so you run up and hit the guy that’s stabbing him with your brick.

The guy's head just... breaks. It just breaks, not like squishing a beetle or smashing a husktop but a little like both but mostly it breaks like a _head_. You know what breaking a head is like now.

The body drops, and twitches, and doesn’t get up.

“Good,” Karkat says, panting. “Good. Cover me.”

"Cover you?" you repeat weakly.

Karkat's got his teeth bared like a goddamn feral. "When I put somebody on the ground, you make sure he doesn't get up again." He lunges for one of the remaining thugs, howling, before you can respond to that.

This time, when he clubs a guy to the ground, you’re right behind him, and you smash this guy's head open, too. It pulps differently. Maybe it’s because he has different horns—these ones are bigger, and they stick in the mud. The blood smells so different than the tinted animal blood they use for stunts: this is troll blood. There are shards of red and orange chitin in the mud, and you’re going to be sick.

“Eridan,” Karkat snaps, and he’s kicking the third guy over. He’s got a bad long cut across his face and his bright unreal blood streaming in ribbons. Something in your head snaps, rage-red, crimson. You kick the guy Karkat just knocked down, get him in the kidneys as he's trying to get up. He rolls away and you follow, not giving him room to get off the ground again. You’ve got enough time to see light glinting off his face, on his roar of pain and his long yellowy teeth, and fuck, this would make a beautiful shot.

Then you smash his head open, too. Bone splinters, shatters, gray panmatter and green blood splattering up around your hand. You bring your brick down again. Again. You don't want there to be anything left. They should have known better. They should have backed off. They never should have touched Karkat.

Karkat, fuck, you need to be—you look up and see him clinging to the one thug still standing, trying to get his attention as the guy staggers toward Cronus. You lurch in their direction, fuck, fuck, you need to help—and then Karkat pulls the knife out of his own arm, yanks the thug's head back by the hair, and takes his head half off with one violent, ripping stroke.

Blood sprays _everywhere_. Karkat lets go, stumbling clear as the dead thug collapses. Cronus is still staring blindly, and now there's a streak of bright fresh teal splashed across his face.

“Cronus, love, how long do we have,” Karkat says, crouching down by him, patting his face. “When’re they going to get here?”

Everything feels too real right now. Every sound is so loud, you can hear the bodies dripping. You lean against the wall and heave for breath.

Karkat pries Cronus's hand open around the communicator, staring at the screen. "Okay. Okay. Shit. We can do this." He gets up, pressing his hand to the gash in his arm. "If we can hold out for another fifteen minutes we'll be fine."

"Hold out?" you ask. "These guys aren't gettin' up again."

"I promise you they aren't the only ones in the neighborhood," Karkat says. He looks around and you can see him taking stock, making plans. "Pile up the bodies," he says.

“What,” you say.

“You know In Which Three Hundred Threshecutioners Rise To Defend Etcetera?” Karkat demands. “Nothing makes people think twice about having a go at you like standing on a pile of fucking corpses, Eridan. Now stack the fucking bodies, my arm is fucked, and if I have to tangle with anyone else tonight we are all motherfucking goddamn shit-on-a-flaming-stick DEAD.”

"Sir, yes, sir," you say, and you mean it. You grab the nearest corpse and start dragging.  
While you work, you can hear Karkat talking to Cronus, low coaxing pleas interspersed with hissed curses as he tries to tie up his arm with a strip of shirt. You don't know what you're going to do if Cronus is really that badly fucked in the head about this. He's a _shit_ , right, and he's only proved it more just now, but you don't want to be to blame for him getting wrecked. You don't want Karkat to be to blame. You shift another body, watching goo spill out of the bashed-in skull as you drag it along, and try to figure out how you would explain that it wasn't Karkat's fault.

"Oh my god," Cronus says at last, this low, hopeless croak. You glance up for a second. He looks like he might be sick, but his eyes are focusing at least. "You killed them. Why would—you didn't have to kill them."

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Karkat snaps. "No, Cronus, I'm sorry, this is the fucking real world. I think I did goddamn well mention that out here, things are dangerous. Out here, _people kill people_. Sometimes you _do_ fucking have to."

Silence for a second. You swallow. "How many,” you say carefully, “have you had to?”

“Only like—two. Three.” Karkat glances over his shoulder. “Somewhere between five and seven, now, I don’t know, how do we divvy the blame for this clusterfuck—”

“You’ve killed seven people,” you repeat.

“It’s not like murder makes me feel all _special_ in my netherdressings,” Karkat growls. “In case you didn’t notice, you guys, I am small, I am weak, and I am a fucking mutant. Would I be standing here defending myself to you idealistic nobs tonight if I didn’t know when it was time to slice a throat?”

"Hey," you protest. "I didn't—I never said there was anything wrong with it. With you bein'—bein' a fighter." Honestly, there's something about the look on his face right now, cornered and fierce, streaked with blood, that's tying you up in knots inside. You look at him and you wonder how you could have missed that this was there.

He snorts. "Don't go trying to make me a hero. If I never have to do this frontal assault bullshit again I won't complain." He looks you straight in the eyes and it's a challenge. "A quick kill from behind is a hell of a lot less risky."

You kind of want him to nail you to the wall right there.

Unfortunately for all of you there’s the scrape and thump of footsteps, and Karkat breaks away. He scales the mound of bodies in a few loose strides, his bloody pipe resting up against his shoulder, his bad hand tucked jauntily in his hoodie’s front pocket.

“Oh, look,” he sings out brightly, “we’ve got some more volunteers for my corpse castle! Did you guys know if you all charged me at once, I’d have enough bodies to start a look-out tower?”

You think, _we need to have a word with the casting department._

Then you wipe some fingerpaint streaks of green blood across your cheeks, flare out your fins in a threat display, and climb up there to be his lieutenant. The hell you're going to be late helping him a second time.

*

The whirring thump of the copter blades overhead is maybe the best sound you've ever heard in your life. Your throat has been progressively trying to close up for the last couple of minutes, while you tried your hardest not to look like you were scared of fuck-all. Now there's a painfully bright searchlight beam sweeping down over the alley, washing everything blue-white. The gang facing off against you shuffles like they're thinking about moving—then there's a sharp _crack_ from the copter and the nearest thug drops, face shattering into a gooey mess.

The survivors take off running, and your rescue shuttlecopter lowers itself neatly into the space they've vacated. Securipper Parlet is the first one out of the shuttle and you have never been so happy to see her grim unsmiling face.

"About fucking time," Karkat says, dropping the pipe as he sways, and you scramble to catch him before he can fall over.

“What’s his damage?” Parlet asks.

“I’m fine, go get Cronus—”

“Fuck that, Karkat’s bleeding out,” you say, “he got stabbed in the arm and the face and I think his side somewhere and he’s got a bad scuff on a horn, and he might have cracked his pan? And his—”

“Good fuck, just get in here,” she says.

“Get. Cronus. Now,” Karkat bites out, and it’s not just a twang of Dualscar to his voice—it’s pure command. Parlet looks at you and you just spread your fins wide as you can and glare.

She gets Cronus.

You all pile into the shuttlecopter, and you say, "Seriously, Karkat needs a medictator like fifteen minutes ago."

“I’m fine,” Karkat snaps, all teeth, and then he takes a deep breath, smooths his face out. Big eyes. Nibbled lower lip. “Shouldn’t we get Cronus home, ma’am? I’m _awfully_ worried about him.”

"Sorry, Karkat," Parlet says, as gentle as you've ever heard her—which is still pretty fierce, but you can tell the difference. "We've got orders to keep all of you safe, and you're bleeding heavily enough that I can smell it from here. Cronus will be okay now that he's with us. Your wounds need to get looked at."

You need to find out when Securipper Parlet's wiggling day is so you can give her all the nice things.

Karkat is still clinging to Cronus most of the way to the hospital, curled in his lap, petting his hair, purring reassuringly. You press up against Cronus’s side to wrap an arm around Karkat's waist so you can stay close to him, too, because you're a twisted-up mess now that you have time to notice how scary that all was. He could have died. You all could have died. His blood glistens on his face every time you pass by a streetlight. And he still acts like it doesn't matter. Everything in your gut is a squirming hot disaster of feelings you don't know how to sort out.

“I don’t get it,” Karkat finally says, low and worried. “What’s _wrong_ with him, Eridan?”

You shrink in on yourself in your seat. "I don't know."

"He get hit in the head?" Parlet asks. You and Karkat both shake your heads. "Probably just the shock, then," she says. "Happened to a couple kids in my unit when we saw our first real action in the war. We'll keep him safe and he'll come around."

Karkat sniffles. "Thank you."

“God, that _was_ action, wasn’t it?” you ask, and you realize how much your hands hurt. “I just fuckin’—wow. Wow.”

Karkat looks over at you curiously as the copter banks and starts to descend. You're not sure what you're seeing on his face. The copter lands on the hospital roof before you can figure out how to ask.

Securipper Parlet storms the hospital like she's establishing a beachhead for you, snarling and barking orders at orderlies and nursilencers until she's secured you an exam room. The three of you stay huddled up in a tight pack as you wait for aid. Karkat’s gone small again, small and strange, all big wounded eyes and reedy snuggle-kitten purr. It takes a long minute to remember that this is how he always is, cute and harmless as a doll if you don’t look at all the pale scars up his arms, and no one ever does. When a medical technician comes to have a look at his wounds he fusses and whimpers and clings to Cronus’s hand until he gets a pat on the head and an indulgent “Of course you can stay with your partners, they’ll keep you nice and safe.”

There’s a nasty, choking noise kind of like laughter and then you realize it’s you and you can’t stop. "Sshh," Karkat says immediately, rubbing your back with his good hand. "Ssshh, Eridan, we're okay now." This whole night is _so fucked up_.

The technician cleans out Karkat's face and glues the cut there closed with some kind of skin plaster. The one in his arm is worse and they use _staples_ , oh fuck, you might be sick. You can’t even watch them deal with his side. He keeps trying to purr for you, for Cronus, and it stutters in these little hissed whines of pain as he gets his wounds treated.

By the time they’re winding stark white swaths of gauze around Karkat someone else has come in with a thermal drape for Cronus and some cleansing wipes for you, washing the blood and dirt off you, cleaning out the scrapes on your palm where they're full of brick dust and oh holy shit that's a _horn fragment_. You lean on Karkat and listen to him purring for the two of you as if that's the only thing in the world that matters.

Eventually they leave you alone again, while they work on developing the x-rays they've taken of Karkat's pan. He's up off the examining table as soon as you're left alone, fussing over Cronus, rearranging the warming blanket and petting Cronus's hair, not even glancing at you.

“Cronus, love, come back,” he says, over and over, desperately. "You're safe now, it's okay. We're fine. Come back, please."

Life is so fucking unfair you want to scream. You want to kick over the stupid machinery in the corner of the exam room. Something, anything to take out all this frustration—but you're tired, and you know if you broke anything right now Karkat would be upset and you want him to look at you so much but not like that.

After a couple of long awful minutes of Karkat pleading, Cronus finally moves, wrapping his arms around Karkat's back and pulling him into a hug. You can see his shoulders shaking, and he buries his face in Karkat's shoulder to muffle the noise but it's still pretty clear he's crying. You’ve never heard him cry like this, not properly sobbing or even weeping but just gasping out these tremulous little jags of sound, like a purr turned inside-out. You haven’t heard anyone cry like this before. It’s an awful noise. You want to smack him.

“Oh thank god,” Karkat says thickly, rubbing at Cronus’s neck. “Thank god, thank god, Cronus, kitten, come on, chill out, chill the hell out, it’s gonna be okay.”

Cronus cries for a long time, long enough for you to get through relief and progress right past boredom to a clear and bitter resentment. Your bloodpusher twinges and you're shaking right down to your bones. It's a relief that Cronus has snapped out of it, and you're glad, you hate him sometimes but you're glad he's okay, it's just, fuck, why are you _always_ the last in line? You work so hard and you get such _shit_ to show for it.

Karkat’s shaking all over by the time Cronus cries himself quiet. He looks hurt and you hate it.

“Hey,” you finally say. “Get back on the table. You’ve got brain damage.”

“Fuck’s sake, I’m fine,” Karkat sighs. “It was a possible concussion. How’re you feeling?”

“Like you should get back on the table.”

He fixes you with a sharp look, and tightens his good arm around Cronus’s neck.

“I’m getting really tired, Eridan,” he says warningly, “of your jealous wiggler bullshit. Really, really tired.”

“Fuck you,” you snap. “Kar, you’re _hurt_ , you are down half a horn and an arm and god knows what else, I am not just jealous I am full well about to flip my shit all over the fuckin’ floor, will you stop dancing attendance on _either_ a us and GO SIT ON THE DAMN TABLE, _PLEASE._ ”

He nuzzles into Cronus’s shoulder for a long minute, and he’s shaking worse than ever. Cronus makes a little ragged noise and kisses the side of his head.

“Hhn,” Karkat finally breathes, “you, uh. Can. Can you help me over?”

Oh, god. You’re up in a flash, pulling him very, very carefully upright. He hisses with pain and you want to vomit up all your organs, you feel awful. He doesn’t even want to lean on you, you have to kind of awkwardly pull up on his good arm while he walks, step by stiff, careful step, back to the table.

“If you busted a staple—”

“Then it’ll be a good thing I’m in a hospital,” he says. He tries to climb onto the table himself and snarls at you when you lift him. You snarl back. You’re both thoroughly miserable, and the minute he’s got his ass settled he’s grabbing at your bandaged hand.

“No, just, really, tell me how you’re doing,” Karkat demands. “Are you going to melt down too, please don’t.”

“No, it’s okay, I won’t,” you say, and climb up next to him. You don’t even know where you can touch him and you want to touch him so badly. “I’m here for you, okay?”

He looks at you sidelong, still just shaking. You take a piece of his hair and tuck it behind his ear, very gently, and he gulps and wipes at his eyes and you wish he’d just start crying already. You could deal with that. Karkat cries all the time, he’s so fragile and sensitive and has killed somewhere between five and seven people. Your head hurts. 

“I don’t think you understand,” he says slowly, “how...” he waves his good hand, “this, all of this, this is kind of a big deal. For me.”

“Gettin’ jumped?”

“Getting help.” And he laughs, all fangs and pain, touches at his bandages. “No one’s ever. There was no-one to ask, and it wasn't safe, and... And now I’m in a fucking hospital. They even put on the fucking _bandages_ for me.”

Oh.

“You guys don’t know,” he says, and he looks at you, really looks at you, wondering and soft and pitying like fire. “You guys couldn’t possibly know, you were made for all this, for each other, even, literally _made_. I’ve always just been on my own.”

You promised him you weren't going to melt down, so you put all you got left into being composed. "If I could ask a favor, maybe, for backin' you up out there," you say and you sound so brittle, fuck, you're contemptible right now, "I'd—I'd really like a chance to be, you know, looked at like I'm a person on my own rights, an' not just part of the set I was literally made for."

"Shit, I'm sorry," Karkat says, taking your hand so gentle. "Sorry, that was—I really didn't mean to be a jerk about that. I didn't know it would make you mad. I should have. Sorry."

"No, it's," your stupid voice is all choked and trying to betray you. "I’m sorry, really, what do I know about serious problems, right, I'm not the one with a cracked pan and scars all over." The words feel like bile in your throat and you can't hold them down. You try to at least be quiet; Cronus has his eyes closed but you don't know if he's really asleep or not and you don't want to give him more to rub in your face. "I just try so fuckin' hard all the time, Kar, I do, and it's always almost-but-not-quite, I'm always barely keepin' up, just scrapin’ by at not being a disgrace to the name, and I just want someone to fuckin' look at _me_ every once in a while. Like I'm good enough the way I am. I want _you_ to look at me like that." You sniffle. "Here I was supposed to be keepin' it cool and bein' here for you, too, shit, and I even gotta fail at that—"

“You’re here,” he says, scooting a little closer. “You’re with me. You’re—god, Eridan, you are so preposterously dumb. Sorry. But. Fuck, wow. Okay. I can words, here.” He kisses your shoulder. “You faced down a gang with me while armed only with a brick, Eridan. You broke three guys' fucking heads for me. If that’s not—if that’s not cool, then. Then what is?”

You try on a smile. “Can’t think of much,” you say, and kiss his cheek. “I’d do it again. I’d do it every night, I swear it. You’re not on your own anymore, you get me?”

“I get you,” he breathes, and kisses you. There are the tears, at last, but he's smiling through them and your rib cage barely fits ‘round your heart, that makes such a mess of you. He licks his way into your mouth and you want him there, want him, so much. Your nerves are jangling with relief at how you're not going to die after all, you're not going to die and Karkat thinks you're cool.

It’s not like you and Karkat aren’t always at each other, these days, you’re the youngest and you’ve got needs and who cares, but it’s different like this: you almost died, you still stink of fear and blood and dirt and it’s amazing, when he puts his hand on your knee it’s like getting electrocuted right in the nook. He presses right up against you, feverishly hot, good hand fisted tightly in your shirt just like he needs you as badly as you need him to, and it’s not until he tries to get a leg over your lap that you can pull away and gasp for air.

“No, hang on,” you mutter, pushing at him, “don’t, your staples—”

“To hell with my staples,” Karkat says hungrily, and nips at your fins. “Fuck me now.”

“Okay,” you breathe. You’ve seen him needy but this is something else; his eyes are glittering and he actually claws at you as you bend over him, deliberating. You want to fucking devour him.

“Eridan,” he hisses.

“Lie back,” you say, helping him ease down, watching out for his side. He doesn’t appreciate it at all, just chews distractingly on your neck. You peel his pants down and he’s soaking, so flushed for you, and you slide off the side of the table to get the right angle and you bring your mouth down to his curling bulge, let it twist and slide against your tongue, so warm, so astonishingly warm. He wails and his hips roll up and you have to make a grab for him before he slides right off the table after you. You splay a hand on his stomach before he can squirm any more.

“Calm down,” you mutter, pulling back enough to kiss at his thighs, his “calm down, shh, I got you, calm down.”

“I’m calm,” Karkat pants, sounding frantic, “I’m calm, I’m calm, I need you—”

You brace an arm across his narrow hips to anchor him and suck on his bulge, the warm bitter heat of him, you swallow it to the root in a few easy pushes, and sink fingers up into his nook. He’s small and boiling-sweet and moaning his head off and you’re worried, distantly, but most of the words he’s managing are “Yes” and “Eridan” and “More” and you wouldn’t stop if half the hospital came to drag you away.

You curl your fingers up to rub that inner wall between nook and bulge and he hits his climax unexpectedly fast, flooding across your mouth and face and you choke, just a little, but you lick at him through it with a kind of glorying exultation, that you’re alive, that he’s alive, that you’re doing this to each other. You bulge is so fucking flushed you’re kind of scared to touch it, you’re so on fire for him.

The door clicks open.

“So, Mister Vantas, we’ve determined—oh, for fuck’s sake.” You look up, hand halfway into your pants, to see a medical technician with a sheaf of x-rays and a distinctly peeved expression.

“Oh my god,” Karkat wails, and you have to hold him down to keep him from curling up in a ball of shame, it can’t be good for his injuries. He covers his face with both hands. It’s incredibly hot. Everything is incredibly hot right now. You flare your fins at the technician and snarl, more than ready to add another body to your kill count if it’ll get you off any faster.

“Five minutes, kids, and this exam room is _spotless_ ,” is all she says. She takes two steps back and closes the door.

“Oh my god,” Karkat whimpers. “Oh, my god. Okay. Here, Eridan, come up here.”

You’re over him in a flash, claiming his mouth, marking up his throat, and he squeaks and laughs breathlessly and slides his warm little hand into your jeans. You’re fumbling for the clasp of your jeans in a confusion of pleasure and too many wrists jostling to get at the same area when he finds your bulge and squeezes. Your nook clenches down on itself, hard, and you barely manage to brace yourself and not fall on top of him as you come, the world flaring up white-hot all around you.

He raises his head up and kisses you on the nose.

“God,” you croak, shaking all over. “Wow, fuck.” By your count you have just under four minutes left, and you're going to need a lot of paper towels.

Karkat laughs weakly and tries to get up when you start pulling them out of the dispenser. "Here, let me help."

"No, Kar, goddamnit, let somebody else do the fussing over you for once," you tell him, not as cross as you sound. You mop up and dump one soaked handful of towels after another into the waste bin, bailing out your jeans as best you can and giving them up for a lost cause once they're no longer dripping.

You help Karkat get wiped down and buttoned back into his pants, and you think you might even have forty-five seconds of your five minutes left. You crack the door open a little so the medictator will know you're ready for company again. By the time you turn around Karkat has snuggled up next to Cronus, who looks rattled and meek, with a side of that-was-one-hell-of-a-show blush on his cheekbones. You're not pissed at Cronus anymore, you realize. Crazy shit happened tonight and you both had a really good chance to see what you’re made of, what you’ve made _of_ yourselves. You bet he's going to just chew himself up, these coming nights, for not being able to handle it after all his talking tough. If it'd been you, you'd hate yourself so much. But it wasn’t you.

You sit down on his other side, lean into him and reach around his back far enough to hook your fingers into one of Karkat's belt loops. The two of you saved him, didn't you? You nip Cronus’s fin, more kindly than you’d meant, and after a second of consideration you kiss the little purple mark. He stretches, slow and cautious, and leans into you for an actual kiss, tongue slipping into your mouth.

"Fuck, that tastes good," he purrs against your lips, and kisses you again. Karkat peeps. You purr back, smugly, and let Cronus explore your mouth as much as he likes. _You_ just got to actually taste Karkat firsthand, you were _there_ for him.

There's a cough from the doorway that makes you look up. "If Mister Vantas has a moment to discuss his x-rays?" the medictator asks dryly.

"Yes," Karkat squeaks. "Sorry."

"Nothing we haven't seen before, especially with patients your age," the medictator says, brushing his worries away, and you like her. "Exposure to stress and danger often triggers an instinctive response like that in the aftermath. In your case, I'd say it's reassuring—it's evidence that your hemochrome mutation hasn't affected your endocrine system as well."

"Oh," Karkat says. He sounds stunned and maybe a little pleased, you hope. "So, uh. How's my pan?"

The medictator smiles. "Admirably sturdy," she says as she puts the film up on the light tray thing so you can all see it. "There's a hint of a very old fracture here, which appears to have healed cleanly, and tonight's adventures have not broken any bones. You can see the horn damage at this angle, but it's minor enough that you have an excellent chance of regrowing the lost tissue if it's kept clean and dry during the recovery period." She fixes you and Cronus with a really stern look. "That means absolutely no licking."

You don't even have to try to look sorry. You're going to miss that. At least he's got another one on the other side, and his pan's not broken. "Can we take him home, then?" you ask.

"Yes." She looks at Karkat, talking straight to him instead of to you. "I'll bring you some medication for the pain, and a set of care instructions for your injuries. Then you can take your security team and go home."

*

The medictator had Karkat only take a half dose of the pain pills, because he's so small and hotblooded, but he's still pretty loopy by the time the shuttlecopter brings you back to your hotel. Dualscar is waiting for you when you get inside. He smiles a beautifully tender smile as he sees Karkat wobbling up between you and Cronus. "Welcome back, spitfire," he says.

Karkat gives him a sloppy grin and an even sloppier salute and Dualscar draws himself all the way up and nods regally, and you’ve never been so glad to see the two of them play soldier with each other.

“Report, kiddo,” Dualscar says, chucking him under the chin.

"Mission accomplished, sir," Karkat says, beaming woozily up at him. "Enemy forces repelled with no casualties. Heh. Not on our side, anyway. Eridan here was fucking brilliant under pressure, helping neutralize three superior...superiorly? armed opponents. And Cronus kept up our communication lines until reinforcements arrived." He sways on his feet and Dualscar is there to gather him up before he can pitch over. “We fucked their shit, sir. We fucked the hell outta all their shit.”

"My brave little soldier," Dualscar says, hoisting him into the crook of his arm and carrying him through your suite to the big recuperacoon in the back. “You did good, darlin’, stand down.”

Karkat clings to his neck and mumbles into his chest, “I made a castle out of the bones of our enemies, I think I get bonus points for that,” and Dualscar laughs.

"Absolutely, you do," he says. You and Cronus follow them. It would feel weird to let Karkat out of your sight right now.

Dualscar helps Karkat out of his clothes, kissing him gently all over the place. Karkat's gone soft and pliant with the meds, smiling dreamily and half asleep on Dualscar's shoulder by the time his pants come off. His purr is a drowsy stutter and he looks so small, so delicate; you have to keep reminding yourself that you saw this kid climb a pile of corpses and offer to stuff the flash-boiled brains of a gang of vicious hooligans up their collective waste chutes just a few hours ago.

Now Dualscar eases this soft, sleepy Karkat into the recuperacoon, then strips off quickly and joins him, wrapping the kid up against his chest. There's a minute of just fussing around, tucking limbs up close together, brushing hair back off Karkat's face all tender. Then he looks over at the two of you, still standing there watching. "Neutralize?" he asks you, one eyebrow raised.

"With a brick," you say, trying to mimic Karkat's swaggering-killer smile. You're afraid it just looks like you're on the edge of another freakout. "Wham, crunch."

Dualscar just nods slowly, thoughtfully, and you know he was on the front lines for a while but you've never seen him wear it quite like this before. "It was a very stupid risk you took, going out alone," he says. You brace yourself for some thorough yelling. "I'm glad you had the sense to defend yourselves when the inevitable happened."

"Yessir," you say. You duck your head so he'll know you know you ought to be getting reamed right now, and you're grateful he's holding off. "Really lucky we had Karkat along."

"You should've seen him," Cronus says, this shiver running through him. "He just—went at them. Like a hurricane."

"He was amazin'," you have to agree. "Kid fights like...." You shake your head. You don't have a good comparison.

Dualscar looks down at Karkat's meagre, banged-up carcass. "He has a fierce little heart, doesn't he?"

Cronus takes your hands and turns them palm up, looking at the bandage you got there. "Course, you weren't so bad yourself, chief," he says.

"Flattery, huh?" you say with a grin. "Keep that up, I'm listenin'."

"Brat," he says, but it's not as sharp as usual. He gets you by your shirtfront and pulls you close, and you can feel him trembling a little as you wrap your arms around him.

“Shh, Cro’, it’s okay,” you say softly, and you stroke his back. He runs his lips along the top ridge of one of your fins, gentle and cautious, and you keep petting him. Your guts twist with a hotly protective pity, for all that he’s bigger than you. For all that he’s such a douche. “You’re safe now.”

He shivers harder at that, and you can feel the lump of his bulge pressing against you as he drapes his arms over your shoulders. You keep petting him, long reassuring strokes, and you tell him just what you’d want to hear, if you were still scared, if you hadn’t been the one to step up. You croon, “It’s all over, kitten, it’s all over, we’ve got you, I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

When he leans down to kiss your mouth it's tear-streak wet and soft, so soft, and you can't believe it feels as good as it does. But you all sort of belong to each other, don't you? He's yours, and you took care of him, and you both know it. That makes it so much easier to let the anger go. You pet his fins and lap at his tongue and drink in the sweet trilling purr he makes, and your nook is starting to feel tingling and sensitive again.

"Take this off for me, love," you say, pulling up the hem of his shirt.

Cronus nods. "Sure," he says, instead of making you wrestle him for it, and shrugs it off easily. You glance over at Dualscar as you catch at your own hem, and he's watching, elbows propped up on the back rim of the recuperacoon and Karkat drowsing on his chest. He nods just slightly, like he thinks you're doing something right, like you've got his approval here, and—fuck, it's not like he's ever _minded_ watching you and Cronus mess around, but it feels like more than that. You want it to be more than that. You're going to believe it.

The two of you kick off shirts, jeans, briefs, and when he’s naked you catch at his hip, clasp the back of his neck, and bear him gently to the floor.

“I got you,” you tell him. “Lie back for me, kitten,” and he just nods again, still so quiet, for all that his fins are spread wide and bright with arousal. You stroke the slick hollow of his throat, down across the plane of his chest.

You say, “I’m going to make you feel good, bro,” not like you’ve ever said it before, not like a boast or a threat or a come-on, just... an assurance, and he hears it and closes his eyes and nods.

When you slide your fingers down below his twitching stomach, his bulge seizes your hand hard and he throws his head back, keening sweet and desperate for you, and you can feel how wet he is, what a struggle it is for him to hold still. That same desperate _we’re alive_ mania’s caught him up, made him raw and frantic, and you slow down to steady pulls of his bulge, run a thumb across one of his fins gentle and firm.

“Easy,” you shush him, “easy, Cro, it’s okay, I’m here, it’s okay. Shh, it’s okay.”

He keens helplessly. His bulge works itself in tight, hungry coils around your fingers and he’s shaking all over, wild with need. You remember the savage power of the way you and Karkat went at each other back in the hospital but that’s not right, for this, for your brother: Cronus doesn’t need power, he needs love. You kiss him, slow and tender, ignoring the frantic chirrups he breathes into your mouth, till he calms breath by stuttering breath and finally wraps his arms around your back, pulls you into a close embrace.

“Fuck, Eridan, _please_ ,” he moans.

“That’s good,” you tell him, squirming till your bulge finds his. You kiss the side of his mouth, his cheek. “Just like that, yeah, god, just like that. I got you.”

You grab his leg, curl it up around your hip, you think if you get the right angle—yeah, there. Your bulge finds his nook, sopping wet and clenching, and presses in. He’s hot for you and perfect, perfectly agreeable, perfectly desperate, and like this his bulge can get at your nook, too. He’s still bigger than you, still older, and the force and fullness of his entry snaps your head back. Fuck, it’s good, and you ride it, you ride him out. He’s just bigger. He’s not stronger. And he never will be.

You roll your hips, counterpoint to the coil of his bulge, making sure he can feel how much you're running this scene. You're giving him exactly what you both need, exactly the way you want to. You twist your bulge in him, deep, pulsing hard against the slickness of his walls and getting straight-up _high_ on the way that makes him writhe and shudder.

He cries out, and you can feel him coming apart underneath you, and you cradle his head with your hands pressed to each fin, flooding his sensitive electroreceptors with the sense of _you_ , and you kiss him till he’s sobbing.

“You—you were—and they—” he babbles, shaking and wet with tears, rolling up against you like an animal in rut.

“Shh, shh, c’mon, Cronus, c’mon,” you tell him. You ride out another frenzied buck of his hips and you say, “I’ll keep you safe, bro, I swear it, you can let go.”

“Ah,” he gasps, and comes, one long rattling spasm after the other. You press into the flooding wetness of his nook until it’s too much, the fear-spiced smell of him, the richness of his slurry, the way everything’s gone so slick and sweet and wonderful, and it all drives you right into a white-hot climax, looking down at him splayed and shuddering beneath you.

The calm that settles on you after that is a strange thing, a new thing, like a sea finally going mirror-smooth with all the waves settling for one suspended, perfect minute. You breathe in that new strange feeling and let it fill you up, let it gentle all your edges. You look down into a face that's just like yours and you can finally see the difference.

You’ve been fighting all your life, it feels like, since the night they pulled you out of your tank and set you before Dualscar and he said ‘Another one?’. All you ever wanted was to earn some fucking respect, a little acknowledgement that you’re not just one copy too many. And now you’re here and Cronus is, too, breathing hard and smiling up at you, cheek turned soft and quiet into your palm and you know. You’re good. You made it. 

_these paving stones are soaked with blood_  
 _and it's yours, so mop it up_  
—Cubanate, "The Musclemen"


End file.
